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Product Details

About the Author

A medical sociologist who has written extensively about health care delivery, ALEXANDRA DUNDAS TODD is Professor of Sociology at Suffolk University in Boston. Her last book was Intimate Adversaries: Cultural Conflict between Doctors and Women Patients (1989).

Table of Contents

AcknowledgmentsIntroductionCasual CourageI’ve Never Heard The one BeforeAnd Please, No More One Percent OddsSurgery Two: Hoping it Wouldn’t Blind HimAmericans Can’t Eat This WayWestern Reflections on Eastern Medicine: Nutrition and Cancer, Visualization and Cancer, Acupuncture and Cancer, Counseling and CancerRobust ResistanceConclusionEpilogue by Drew Todd

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"At a time when the limits of Western medicine are becoming painfully evident, we need Professor Todd's meticulously informed and eminently readable discussion of what a number of healing modalities can offer"Wendy Sanford, coauthor of The New Our Bodies, Ourselves

Wendy Sanford

“At a time when the limits of Western medicine are becoming painfully evident, we need Professor Todd’s meticulously informed and eminently readable discussion of what a number of healing modalities can offer”

Editorial Reviews

"The Chinese word for crisis consists of two characters: danger and opportunity," writes medical sociologist Todd. For her, the danger was the rare brain cancer that threatened the life of her 20-year-old son, Drew. But it was also an opportunity to combine Western medicine's aggressive treatments (surgery, radiation) with the gentle healing techniques of the East (acupuncture, macrobiotics) in a successful campaign to overcome the cancer. In alternating chapters, Todd describes the diagnosis and treatment of her son's illness and her exploration of alternative methods, applied first to her own ailments. Several appendixes outline Drew's macrobiotic diet and list various resources and readings. While Todd offers some interesting ideas, one wonders how patients lacking her health insurance and her time could cope with complicated recipes and exotic ingredients. For larger health collections.-Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"

Library Journal

When her son was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer after a year and a half of unexplained headaches, blurred vision, and fatigue, Todd reacted as nearly any mother would--with terror. But then she reacted as any scientist would and searched methodically for answers to her questions about the disease and treatment. As a medical sociologist, she had the background and the tools to research and evaluate treatment options, and as a mother, she had the unrelenting will and unending love to see things through: she created a blend of Eastern and Western medicines which enabled her son to beat the cancer. Todd gives the most attention here to macrobiotic nutrition (recipes included) as a mainstay of building resistance and fighting disease, but she also discusses the benefits of integrating Western treatment with such other Eastern approaches as meditation and acupuncture. No half-baked, New Age ideological rant, her report is a carefully researched treatise on effectively battling cancer, worthy of close attention.

Mary Ellen Sullivan

A carefully researched treatise on effectively battling cancer, worthy of close attention.”—Booklist

“Todd has written a probing, insightful, and powerful account of their quest for utilizing the planet’s vast sources of healing wisdom to affirm wholistic health within the individual. The book is inspiring, it asks the right questions of our medical establishment, and offers clear dietary information, reference sources, and sage advice.”—NAPRA Trade Journal